About Vandenberg SFB

A couple of nice shots, taken by Steve H:

As viewed from my deck, the first stage flew directly across a thin waxing crescent moon -- it would have made a spectacular photo, if only I had a decent camera, an excellent telephoto lens, and some photographic expertise. Sigh. And the ISS was very showy as it passed by while the Falcon was doing its thing -- I hope the astronauts weren't too jaded or busy to watch the launch!
Russ
San Diego, CA

From San Diego, the launch was occasionally obscured by clouds, but was still very satisfying. It was very easy to follow both stages of the vehicle through almost all of their burns. I caught much of the flight on my phone:

...Russ
San Diego, CA

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Steve H. captured an excellent clip, in which you can see the first stage, and just toward the end, you can see two bright dots falling behind the second stage -- the fairing halves that were just released.

I couldn't get any photos or video -- San Diego was thoroughly socked in during the launch.
Russ S
San Diego, CA

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Had a bit of undercast here in Ventura, but once the booster cleared that, it was visible through most of the boost phase, Max Q, MECO and staging. Boost-back burn was executed with a nice "jellyfish" plume interaction and solid thruster firings. Could not track after that until entry burn started and that was clearly visible. But, what was really interesting was the second stage plume becoming VERY noticeable as it rose to altitudes where it became sunlit. You could clearly see the gasses moving rapidly away from the nozzle and taking up a large portion of the early morning sky until it became too diaphanous at even higher altitudes as the engine's visibility reduced to a pinprick and disappeared in the distance.

A surprisingly good show!

Josh
Ventura, CA

I slept through this one, so my backyard video only shows the ascent, as I wasn't able to slew the camera to capture the entry burn. Sorry!
Russ
San Diego, CA

As expected, all I could see from San Diego was a bit of a faint vertical white plume. No exhaust flame. No entry burn.
Russ
San Diego, CA

The nearly full moon illuminated the landscape so much that my backyard camera remained in daylight mode throughout the night. I left it in that mode so it could record a little bit of the color of the exhaust during the first stage operation within the atmosphere, which shows up during the launch phase and the entry burn, which it did catch nicely, this time (around 5 minutes into the video).. You can watch the video here.
Russ
San Diego, CA

The skies were nice and clear for the launch. As usual, the first stage appeared on the horizon around a minute after liftoff, as a bright red-orange dot. As it rose, the exhaust trail lengthened and got a little less bright. Upon staging, the second stage started as a dim whitish dot, and as it accelerated to the southeast, it developed its wispy parabolic exhaust arc and faint trail. Around 3 minutes, 50 seconds after staging, the first stage reasserted itself to the south-southeast as a falling, bright red-orange flare, during its entry burn.
You can watch my backyard camera video (night vision = infrared) of the launch here.
Russ
San Diego, CA

I watched from my deck in Mira Mesa. As per usual, the first stage appeared, bright red-orange, around 90 seconds after liftoff. Saw 2nd stage startup, and around 1 minute later, it climbed into the the sunlight and started putting on a show. I captured the flight using my infrared camera again.
Things to watch for:

• First of all, ignore the audio. I don't understand why this happens, but the audio is completely out of synch with what's going on. The audio was coming from my laptop, which was nearby. It's not lagging behind the video, which I would understand (YouTube is at least 30-45 seconds behind real time). It's actually consistently ahead of what's going on. I think the Wyze camera's encoding firmware is defective.
• At around 3 minutes into the video, there's a white patch that shows up behind or in the plume of the second stage. I believe this is the first stage -- or to be more accurate, some sunlit puffs from its cold gas thrusters as it is heading toward recovery. It's also possible that this is from one or both fairings -- they also have nitrogen thrusters.
• At 6 minutes, 30 seconds into the video, at the center bottom of the screen, you can see a bright object ducking down behind some foliage. That's the first stage entry burn.

...Russ
Mira Mesa, California

From Mira Mesa, I was able to observe the last 45 seconds, or so, of the first stage flight (deep red to light orange exhaust trail) and then most of the second stage burn. My sky observation camera captured the flight nicely -- "night mode" works very well for visually faint high altitude rocket plumes, since it's really sensitive to infrared emissions. Thus, a hot exhaust plume shows up well.
Russ Schnapp
San Diego, CA

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Great view from Coronado.

Paul K
Coronado, CA

...these shots taken by Anita D.
near VSFB

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Saw it from here Visalia 100mi north east...
Despite of sunset background, impressive show with my astro binocs, bright orange boost phase, then lots of separations, weird plumes and waves, then dim comet going east then down to horizon again.
Ah if only they lauched 1h later it would be superb.

Edouard S
Visalia, CA

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...these shots provided by Steve H.
Long Beach, CA

Anita D
...not too far from VSFB

I was able to easily watch the flight from my backyard deck. The YouTube webcast delay was approximately 10 seconds, this time. Red-orange exhaust flame appeared just above the northwest horizon. It started out pretty short, actually. As the flight progressed past max-q, the exhaust lengthened considerably and started to fade a bit. Then it actually started to turn bluish in the last 30 seconds before MECO, at which point, I lost sight of the stack entirely. Perhaps 15 seconds later, I caught sight of the second stage -- a dim orange dot with a faint blue-gray exhaust arc, accelerating to the south. I was able to follow it with my binoculars until it started getting close to time for the first stage's entry burn, at which point I focused my attention to the southwest. The first stage entry burn was quite bright, and at perhaps 15 degrees above the southwest horizon. I then continued to watch that horizon, hoping to catch some of the landing burn, but I suspect that's a waste of time -- the burn probably starts at only 5000 feet, and at that range (300 miles?), it may well be at or below the horizon from here.
All in all, a nice show. Not a twilight spectacular, but I'll settle for what I got!
...Russ
Mira Mesa, California

It wasn't too cold to go outside and shoot the launch!


Anita D
...not too far from VSFB

As expected for a daytime launch, nothing whatsoever was visible from Mira Mesa (San Diego).

...Russ

From here in San Diego, the first stage was bright red-orange, as usual, with a pretty long orange tail.

The initial part of the second stage's burn was washed out by a nearly full moon, but then appeared as a bright orange dot with a moonwashed hyperbolic exhaust plume, accelerating to the southeast, quite high in the sky.

The first stage's entry burn was very easily visible, to the south of my home. I'm guessing OCISLY (the landing ship) was off the coast of Baja California. It was too far away to make out the landing burn.

Sadly, my old "pro-sumer" camera with a telephoto lens insists on using auto-focus for video, and I couldn't get it to focus properly, so I have a lovely video of the first stage blurring its way into the sky. I guess it's time to buy a better camera...

...Russ
San Diego, CAs

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get good photos of the launch (away from home at the time). My outdoor monitoring camera caught the launch, but it's not particularly exciting in glorious black and white, wide angle. You can watch it here, if you like.

Russ, San Diego, CA

I watched from my deck in San Diego, and the launch was far more spectacular than I expected. First of all, if you're trying to time things by watching the webcast, BEWARE!: The YouTube stream can lag real time by 30 seconds or more! I was watching the webcast, and the rocket appeared well up in the sky by the time the webcast called the vehicle at max Q, which is impossible. And indeed, 1st stage MECO was called at least 30 seconds after I observed staging.
From here, the first stage exhaust flame was amazingly long -- I'm going to say about 1 - 1.5 degrees (2-3 full moon diameters). And it tended more toward red than orange -- although it might have been tinged by smoke from wildfires.
The second stage engine was a bright orange dot, and its exhaust plume formed a faintly luminous parabolic wake. After around a minute of flight, the plume faded away, but I was able to follow the MVac engine flare almost all the way to cutoff (I looked away before cutoff in the hopes of observing first stage entry burn.)
Unfortunately, I was unable to see anything of the first stage entry burn, nor of the landing burn: There's a marine layer that is probably the culprit.
And, sadly, I did not have my camera. Did anyone get any photos?

...Russ
San Diego, CA

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No photos, but I was able to see (for the first time ever) the 1st stage burn coming to the drone ship (it was low on the horizon)
I think it was my best non twilight effect launch I’ve seen from here.

Thanks for your updates!
Mike R
San Pedro, CA

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I snapped this with my phone (a bit shaky picture) near Pomona, looking south. Thanks for the email updates, I would've missed it!

Mike
Pomona, CA

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Sadly, I couldn't see any of it from San Diego. The sky was a little hazy, with around 15% cloud coverage.
Russ S
San Diego

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And here's an interesting video of the launch as seen from Santa Barbara by the son of a friend of a friend. The first half is of the ascent, starting shortly after max Q. The second half shows the first stage descending. I'm not absolutely certain, but it looks to me as that second clip captures some of the entry burn.
Unknown Santa Barbarian
Santa Barbara

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And finally, here are a couple of shots of the flight from near VAFB:

The full stack on its way to orbit

The first stage starting its landing burn

photos by Anita D.
near Vandenberg AFB

My phone failed to annunciate the alarm, so I managed to miss the launch. BIG Argh!
Russ Schnapp
San Diego, CA

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      Copyright 2018, Jeff Bisely
Video of sunlit part of flight, as seen from Morro Bay California, stage one separation and stage 2 ignition.
[Comments from Russ: At 17 seconds into the video, the first and second stages emerge into the sunlight. The first stage then starts its boost-back burn, to loft it back to the launch site. That burn continues up through the 1 minute mark. In this view, the first stage is to the left and is heading toward the upper left, while the second stage and payload are headed to the upper right. You can then easily see pulses from the first stage's attitude control thrusters at that point. At around 1:11, you can see a white dot appearing below and to the left of the second stage -- I'm pretty sure this is one of the fairings (jettisoned shortly after second stage startup) exercising its own attitude control thrusters. Sadly, the fairing recovery boat ("Mr. Steven") was not deployed, since the sea state in the recovery zone exceeded its capabilities.]
Jeff B
Morro Bay, CA

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What a great show! From the south side of Bolsa Chica Wetlands, along Seaside Street. Maybe a hundred people along the bluffs specifically to watch, and many more stopped their beach cruisers to ask what was going on!
This first shot...

      Copyright 2018, Paul Thomas
...is two blended photos of the first two and a half minutes after the launch. The booster has separated and is moving off to the right. The second stage and payload is moving to the left, and was easily visible until it cut off about 7 minutes later.
The second photo...

      Copyright 2018, Paul Thomas
...is the booster's engine firing as it descended toward Vandenberg. It is a single shot of 140 seconds.
We did not hear the sonic boom from here.
And, one more photo blended from 2 shots of about a minute in total...

      Copyright 2018, Paul Thomas
...as the booster is arcing off to the right, there are 4 to 6 "pulses" in the form of bright lights. I assume these to be attitude control thruster firings. You may have to enlarge the shot to see them plainly.
Paul T
Long Beach

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...and Steve Harte has some excellent videos to share:
In these videos, the second stage is moving to the left, while the first stage is boosting/coasting to the right.

      Copyright 2018, Steve Harte

      Copyright 2018, Steve Harte

      Copyright 2018, Steve Harte

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This video doesn't do the launch justice, but I attempted to track the launch with a 400mm lens on a fluid video head...


(the video gets much more interesting around 1:40)

I have very little experience shooting video with a DSLR. I think this was the very first time I shot video at night, so I think it's a decent first attempt.
Adam I
Winchester, CA

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Will Pendarvis (@deadletters on Instagram) contributed this nifty video:

Hollywood, CA

Sadly, San Diego was completely overcast, so I could only follow the launch via the webcast...
Russ Schnapp
San Diego, CA

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This morning in the bluffs above Bolsa Chica Wetlands near Huntington Beach. We easily saw the main engine cutoff, and could see the rocket all the way until engine shutdown. There was a very pale, thin exhaust trail in the sky for about 15 minutes. Could have had a much wider picture here, but I really did not have the camera pointed correctly!


Copyright 2018 by Paul Thomas
Huntington Beach, CA

In San Diego, the sky was slightly hazy, so the first stage showed up around 30 seconds after lift off, and occasionally disappeared behind clouds. The orange exhaust flame was long and quite bright, and the trail seemed slightly luminous (faint green?) for some distance behind the vehicle. After staging, the "boost-back" burn was similarly bright, and seemed to be sunlit. I was easily able to follow the second stage with my binoculars. The first stage's reentry burn was very bright and easy to observe, but clouds/haze/distance prevented me from seeing anything of the landing burn.
Russ S.
San Diego, CA

I watched the launch from my back yard in Mira Mesa. A reddish-orange streak appeared in the northwest around 90 seconds after liftoff, and rose quickly, heading higher and southwards. Around 20 seconds before first stage engine cutoff, the exhaust plume appeared, perhaps illuminated by the sun. As expected, upon staging, the vehicle became invisible. The Centaur upper stage burns hydrogen/oxygen, which results in a dim blue light that just did not show up in my binoculars.
It was worth getting up to watch the first deep space launch from the West Coast.
Russ S.
San Diego, CA

The launch was easily visible, starting with a very red exhaust flame, soon followed by a brilliant white exhaust plume that expanded more and more as the vehicle rose above the atmosphere. First stage separation was very easily viewed, and you could see some really interesting plumes from the first stage as it flipped and occasionally blipped its engine. As the first stage dropped down to around 10 degrees above the horizon, you could see its engine light during the retropropulsion phase. I was a little surprised that they retained the fuel for these maneuvers even though they didn't recover the stage -- which wasn't equipped with landing legs. Here are a few of the photos I got:




Copyright 2017 by Russ Schnapp
...Russ
Mira Mesa, CA

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Copyright 2017 by CJ Parrish

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Copyright 2017 by Adam Ince

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Copyright 2017 by Steve Harte

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Copyright 2017 by Paul Thomas
This photo is the one everyone else has...and thank you for explaining in your email what I have in the shot.

Copyright 2017 by Paul Thomas
These shots were from the Bolsa Chica Wetlands in Huntington Beach. This [time-lapse] photo: 20 second exposure. The payload is downrange, to the left. In the center, descending, is the booster far behind Catalina Island. The entire "retro" sequence went quite a lot longer. I was hoping to see the descent stage, and was not disappointed. My photos suffered because I was too busy picking my jaw off the ground and screaming like an excited 10 year old. I didn't expect anything like this.
Paul Thomas
Bolsa Chica Wetlands in Huntington Beach

I got up at 1:42, checked SpaceFlightNow.com, and confirmed that the flight was still on, so I went out on the deck with my camera, to see if I could get a decent photo. Around 40 seconds after lift-off, a deep red flare appeared above the northwest horizon. It rose, turned more orangish, and lengthened into an easily discernable tail. At around 2 minutes after liftoff, it dimmed significantly as the SRBs burned out. Nevertheless, I was easily able to follow the first stage burn all the way through. Interestingly, it got brighter toward the end of the burn. Presumably, this is because the exhaust trail spreads out faster and becomes more transparent. After first stage burnout, the vehicle disappeared. The second stage engine is just too small to see anything.
As for the photo? I got one shot off, and it was awful. An orangish zigzag, despite the fact that I had the camera on a tripod. I must have still had my hand on the platform handle.

I live in Morro Bay and it was perfect to watch the liftoff from my front deck on my iPad, see the horizon light up, and then watch the rocket go! Saw the first stage separation with binoculars, the second stage light and leave, and the first stage head back down. Then I could watch the first stage landing on the iPad. Then I had to go to work. Timing was perfect. I saw the January Iridium 1 launch live in Lompoc. Glad to see both a daytime and night time launch.

Jeff B
Morro Bay, CA

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I saw it here in Ventura, and it was AWESOME!

The booster's plume grew into a beautiful blue/purple streak as it rose into the atmosphere. The exhaust diamonds were clearly visible. Staging was easily seen, as was booster turnaround. The boost-back burn was spectacular because the early sunrise was hitting the gases at that altitude. It looked like some sort of cosmic jellyfish swirling around as the booster flew through the plume. I've never seen anything like it and I've witnessed dozens of launches. You could easily see the booster slowing down as it continued the burn.

As I watched the second stage pushing on to orbit, suddenly there was a large orange flame nearer the horizon and it was apparent I was seeing the booster's retro burn! Spectacular! I did not witness the landing burn as it was obscured by the fog deck near the ocean's surface.

No, I don't have any pics as I was transfixed watching the light show with my eyeballs through a pair of stabilized binocs.

I can hardly wait for F9 Heavy from VAFB!

Josh K.
Ventura, CA

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I saw it from Huntington Beach. It was conveniently timed shortly after my usual wakeup time. Only a small red exhaust trail visible during 1st stage ascent. Second stage exhaust was barely visible at all. A couple minutes after 2nd stage got going, there was a bright light for a few seconds below where separaration had occurred, which I assume was the first stage rocket lighting off, too high in the sky to be landing on the platform, but I never saw it again after those few seconds. The distraction made me lose sight of the 2nd stage as it headed south, so I went back inside.

Neil W
Huntington Beach

Well, that launch was spectacular from San Diego. The solid rocket boosters made the vehicle easily visible around 1 minute after liftoff, as a very red, relatively long flame/exhaust trail. About a minute later, the flame got a bit more dim and more orange, presumably after solid rocket booster burnout. Just at that point, the vehicle rose into the sunlight as it got to the southwest of San Diego, illuminating a huge arc of rocket exhaust. The illuminated arc and exhaust flame remained visible until burnout of the first stage. After that, I thought I could see the very dim blue flame of the LH2/LOX Centaur upper stage carrying the NROL payload to orbit. This was well worth watching.
It's been so long since I last saw anything from San Diego, I didn't bother getting my prosumer camera ready. If I had, I could have had some really nice images, darn it!
Russ Schnapp
Mira Mesa, San Diego, CA

I tried to observe the launch from my office in Irvine. It was a clear day, with great visibility, but I couldn't see any of the launch. The kerosene/oxygen propellant just doesn't leave enough of a trail.
Russ
Irvine, CA

I was able to observe the last 10 seconds of the first stage burn from here in San Diego, as the stack climbed into the sunlight. It was an orange dot surrounded by the expanding exhaust gas bloom. The engine then shut down, and a second or two later, there was another brief bloom of exhaust gas as the retro thrusters kicked the first stage away from the Centaur/payload. And that was pretty much it. The Centaur's H2/O2 engines don't give off a very bright visible light, and the sky was hazy.
Unrelated to the launch itself, though: around 10 seconds after the Atlas winked out, I noticed a constellation of three first magnitude blue-white pinpoint objects flying west to east at around 45 degrees elevation. One object was in the lead, and two slightly fainter objects trailed along behind it. I observed it for around a minute before it disappeared into the haze. I'm not really sure what it was. I think it was moving too fast for an airliner, and I saw no nav lights. I thought it might have been the ISS with a Progress or other vehicle in proximity -- but Heavens-Above.com seemed to indicate that ISS was in the wrong hemisphere at the time, and not a possibility. A loose formation of military aircraft? Seems unlikely. I'll probably never know what that was....
...Russ Schnapp
San Diego, CA

Thanks for the heads-up. It was easily visible from Azusa - at about 160 miles from Vandenberg.
John S.
Azusa, CA

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Just wanted to let you know that I think I saw it all the way from Concord, CA Northeast bay area. A tiny orange dot ascending, with no strobes that I could see. Then it just went black, I'm guessing about +3 minutes. (Actually looking back at spaceflightnow, my guestimation of time was close) I'm not sure how long the Atlas stage burns for. It was pretty dim from the beginning, but I could not re-acquire sight of it around that timeframe. I would think a Northbound aircraft would only get brighter. Looked to be ascending due west, which if in level flight would appear northbound to me. Could be wrong, never know...
(Actually, it was heading almost directly away from you, southbound -- Russ)
regards,
Lee A.
Concord, CA

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I followed the mission status via SpaceFlightNow.com, and once they confirmed launch, went out onto my deck to watch for the bird. Approximately 2 minutes after launch, I finally saw a fairly bright (magnitude -1) orange dot progressing southwards in the west, trailing a fairly large parabolic exhaust plume. I watched it for around 30 seconds through binoculars, as it accelerated, until the first stage burned out. I wasn't able to pick up the second stage burn.
Russ
San Diego, CA

Attached is phone pict of launch as seen from 5 story "R" Building at Pasadena City College. Launch was fast, and only the trail was visible.

Thanks!

David Cuatt

I watched for the launch from my office in Irvine. Nada.
Russ Schnapp

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From the fifth floor of Building R at Pasadena City College, we 2 professors and a handful of students saw the rising trail of smoke. It was a subtle event from this distance and time of day.
David Cuatt

We did get up and saw the launch last night. At first it was an orange-red light on the horizon, looked like it was a boat on the ocean. When we realized what it was we looked at it through the binoculars and then we could see it fairly well. It got bigger and better as it approached us and got higher in the sky. We could distinctly see the burn - flames etc. so it was pretty neat. We are glad we got up and watched it. Lucky it was a clear crisp night last night. Recently, until the last few days, we have had a lot of fog.

Anyhow thanks for the tip.

Joy & Laurie R.
Solana Beach, CA

I got a decent shot from the hills near Murrieta
Best regards,
Adam
Murrieta, CA

I was able to observe the launch reasonably well from my home in San Diego. After initially focusing on what turned out to be an aircraft that had just turned on its landing lights on approach to Lindbergh field, I finally located the vehicle climbing on its first stage engines at around 2 minutes 30 seconds into its flight (long after solid rocket booster burnout and jettison). I was easily able to fillow the vehicle's incandescent exhaust as it accelerated, finally climbing into the sun during last 30-45 seconds of the first stage burn. Once it got into the light, the typical bulbous form of the hyperexpanding exhaust was revealed. After first stage burnout, I was unable to track the second stage — which is not terribly surprising since the second stage engine is much smaller.
All in all, this flight resulted in a much better experience than I was expecting.
Russ Schnapp
San Diego, CA

I am in South Pasadena (Los Angeles area) and my 5yr old son and I saw the Atlas-V launch tonight.

We were watching the live webcast of the countdown. At around T-5 seconds, the video froze and did not resume until T+15 sec. We ran outside at that time and observed stars and Jupiter overhead, but the western sky was hazy with a marine layer. It appeared foggy at the launch site in the video. I spotted it as a red dot which started to grow a little tail when it got about 30degs. above the horizon. The tail was about as big as your fingertip with your arm extended. We saw a silver dot trailing away and about 10 sec later we saw the red dot flicker and go out at what I believe was first stage cutoff.

It was about an hour past his bedtime and he was really tired. I think he was both a little excited and a little disappointed. Dad is much more excited by tiny dots in the sky.

Sorry no pictures.

Cheers,

Patrick W.
South Pasadena, CA

From San Diego, I was able to see the incandescent exhaust of the solid rocket boosters past my neighbor's trees. It was a dim red dot with a faint trail, that soon faded as the boosters burned out and the vehicle was hidden by haze and clouds. Then, around a minute later, the vehicle reached sunlight and the exhaust trail bloomed against a dark blue sky. The exhaust abruptly ended, although I could see a faint white dot continuing to accelerate southwards, presumably from the still-burning engine. I suspect that the vehicle was only briefly in sunlight during the launch.
Russ Schnapp
San Diego, CA

Watching from fifth floor of PCC's Building R, we saw a faint fast trail through the bright Pasadena haze. Hard to see . . . there was some wavy smoke doing a drifting fade-away back at the horizon/start.

Thanks,
Dave C
Pasadena, CA

I saw this from Escondido, CA. It was spectacular! We had perfect visibility with stars at the horizon. I saw the vehicle at 19:30:28. No contrail, but a terrific flame plume that reminded me of a blowtorch. It was only about 10 degrees above the horizon. I thought I might see it stage, but instead at 19:33:00 the vehicle made it into sunlight and the exhaust lit up! I lost it at about that time. Verrrry nice and many thanks for the heads up.

David D.
Escondido, CA

Attached are some shots of the Vandenberg rocket launch carrying an Italian satellite in its payload.

The AIDS LifeCycle ride was camped at River Park in Lompoc, and I picked up four people for dinner in Lompoc. After dinner, we drove out Ocean Avenue to catch the launch.

The first shot shows the rocket rising to the right of the setting sun. The second shows it rising (image at left). The third shows it nearly overhead. The fourth shows the group pointing to the rocket with the contrail visible to the right.
Anita
Lompoc, CA

Crystal clear conditions on the Central Coast allowed a spectacular view from my home in Pismo Beach this morning. I can still see swirls from the first stage contrail drifting eastward almost an hour after launch. The most interesting part of the launch was shortly after second stage separation when a tiny blue cloud formed at the point of separation which quickly grew to a impressive sun lit bright blue cloud about 5 degrees wide.

Todd Walker
Pismo Beach, CA

In Pasadena, we hung around in the back yard waiting for the launch. Gazed at a beautifully developing sunset while watching for the Delta. Quite worth it--DeMille quality. It burned a golden trail up to about 20 degrees elev., then ran straight left from west to south. This was one f-a-s-t moving machine. Saw nice plume at stage separation/burn. Residual clouds were a bit understated. Thanks, Dave Cuatt Pasadena, CA

I had to be at work early today and was driving when the launch happened. From Culver City the first stage plume looked very large and bright white. Very easy to spot. The sad thing was my brain hadn't started to function yet--and I didn't know about the launch in advance. So when I first saw it I thought that it was maybe Venus with some costal fog hazing the view---causing it to appear blurry and bloom very, very wide.

By the time my brain reminded me that Venus could not have been in that position. It was too late to see anything...

Kent
Culver City, CA

From Pasadena, a backyard skunk nearly cancelled viewing of a punctual launch -- a warm yellow ball rising in the west moving to the left (south), then seeming to pause before fading to black.
Skunk also launched, but missed.
Dave Cuatt
Pasadena, CA

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Very nice launch! Saw it all the way to Orion's belt/M42 in the west.
Dave (Central Valley)

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Crystal clear night as we watched the missile's flame create a beautiful reflection across the ocean. The flame turned from bright yellow to red as it crossed beneath Betelgeuse and across the chest of Orion as it faded from view. Dead silence was replaced by a loud low rumble that lasted for several minutes.
Todd and Jer
Pismo Heights, CA

As expected, I was only able to observe the Titan 4 while the solid rocket boosters were burning. A relatively faint exhaust trail appeared from behind a building, and as I focused the binoculars on it, I could see a faint flame at the top. As the vehicle climbed, the flame became a little brighter (as the exhaust trail spread out due to the decreasing air pressure). As soon as the SRBs separated (and they got surprisingly bright after separation), there was nothing more to see of the core vehicle. The SRB's flashed a few times (while tumbling), and then faded away as they began their descent to a Pacific Ocean impact.

Goodbye Titan!
Russ Schnapp
San Diego, CA

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Wow! This was one day I was actually glad to be a taxpayer! My love and I parked at the North end of Union Sugar Road on the bank of the Santa Ynez river next to an immense field of artichokes, just under three miles from the launch pad. We could see the top 30 feet of the mobile service tower and the nose cone of the rocket through a grove of trees. The weather was perfect with only a few alto-nimbus clouds floating by.

Liftoff occurs, the last of the Titans slowly lifts up past the trees and comes into full view. Through binoculars we could see the lettering on the rocket. The flame was so very very bright, it burned an image in my retina that lasted for at least 20 minutes. The length of the flame was 3 or 4 times the length of the rocket itself. It only took a few seconds before the sound hit us. It started off as a loud low roar building into a thunderous clapping earth-shaking mind-blowing sound that will never be forgotten. The rocket turned to the South and pointed its engines almost directly at our location. You could actually feel the sound pressing against your skin and jostling your internal organs. When booster separation occurred, we could see both boosters tumbling down along with a mysterious 3rd piece of hardware we didn't expect to see. Everything faded into the sky except the wondrous contrail that looked like a 10 mile high thunderhead. We could still hear the rumble and crackle of the engines until 11:11, some 7 minutes after liftoff.

Inside tip for readers!: While we were driving back into Lompoc to get fuel, we came across a film crew with the biggest camera I have ever seen. There was tons of equipment including a generator to run it all. I stopped and asked where we could view the footage. The gentleman told me it's to be included in an upcoming pilot (working title "Space") on the Fox Network to be aired sometime between Spring and next Fall!

Todd Walker and Jer Jarvis
Pismo Beach, CA

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The launch was visible (and quite audible) from here at Morro Bay in mostly clear but somewhat hazy conditions. Because of the southerly trajectory, we were watching the first stage main engine ignition, and solid burnout, from almost directly behind. I was watching with a 25cm astronomical telescope. It was a peculiar sight when the main (liquid fueled) engines turned on and began to push the smoke away from behind the vehicle -- suddenly we could see the flames from the solids much more brightly than before. My wife, watching without a telescope, remarked that it looked as if someone had turned on a sodium-vapor streetlight. The solids did seem to keep burning long after separation. Their crazy tumbling (still smoking as well) was amusing to watch. The main engines were still visible for a while as white points of light, but it was much more fun watching the solids zigzag around until they finally burned out and disappeared into the haze. When the noise showed up, it was appropriately impressive for one of the larger rockets launched from Vandenberg.

J.R.
s Morro Bay, CA

I used this launch as an excuse to leave my sweaty elliptical trainer early, and got home just in time to drag my long-suffering wife out to the street in the off chance everything would happen on time. Just when I thought we were out of luck, there she bloomed! A brilliant white plume against the dark blue sky. In my binoculars, you could easily see the rapidly expanding plume being emitted from the tiny pinpoint of the vehicle. It's absolutely amazing how much of a visual display this tiny vehicle can produce! At least two distinct staging events plainly visible from here. Afterwards, there was a little bit of color in the now-loopy exhaust trail, but not much. Very satisfying!
Russ Schnapp
San Diego, CA

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A bank of fog drifted in about 7PM and my heart sank. Walked back into work next to LAX quite depressed. "We won't see this one guys," I told my coworkers. At 7:22, I walked back out, just to see if I could get a glimpse. Just then, the fog parted, revealing some blue sky. Right on cue, the Minotaur roared brilliantly into view (no one out with me to share in the excitement) and provided a spectacular show, one of the best I've seen to date. I hope my son filmed it for me...I'll find out later. Bring on Delta IV and the mighty Titan IV!!!!
Steve Harte
Long Beach, CA

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We were stunned by the light show of tonight's launch. Since we had never seen one of these launches before, my family and I were excited and puzzled by the brightly glowing exhaust trail. I heard a brief mention on the radio that it was a launch from Vandenberg, so I was able to find your website via Google. I took these photos from indoors looking out our west-facing window here in north San Diego County. The darker image of the rocket has some window reflection and the lighter image was taken with a three second exposure without any tripod (lots of hand jiggle). I retouched them slightly to lighten/darken them. I hope we see another launch like this again!
Todd Ewing
San Diego

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We watched the launch from our deck in Pismo Heights 25 to 30 miles North of the launch pad. Everybody knows how incredible the contrail was from all the great pictures. The cool thing we noticed from up close was when the first stage separation took place where we witnessed roughly 50 or so pieces of bright burning metallic objects floating down from the event similar to a fireworks explosion.
Todd and Jer
Pismo Beach, CA

I just thought I would write to say that I was here in the lab working late (as usual) and was looking forward to seeing the launch tonight from the roof of our lab, and take a time exposure. Unfortunately, I got distracted, saw the time was 1:56am and thought, "shoot, I blew it ...oh well, might as well go and look out of the window down the hall to see how clear it is. Hey, what is Mars doing in the west?"...and moving! Ran to get my binocs and got to watch the last minute or so of the ascent through the window. Might have been a bit more interesting with a moon behind it, but I did manage to see a big piece of some debris or something falling away for a few seconds about 15 seconds before the main cut off.

John D
Pasadena, CA

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